Our dear friend Bette Gilchrist died last night at Westminster Canterbury. Bette’s daughter-in-law, Julie, and her grandson, Charlie, were holding her hands when she left us. Bette had fallen earlier in the week and sustained a brain injury. We will miss her sweet smile, her sense of calm and trust. Bette’s sons, Mark and Jay are in town and are taking care of anything that needs to happen now.
From Peace and Social Concerns – Organizations to Help Ukraine
The War in Ukraine weights heavy on our hearts. There are different ways to attend to the issues and needs.
You may also wish to attend an International Meeting for Worship for Ukraine, Monday through Saturday, noon EST. The
Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4165005614?pwd=NUtieEtqbDBYbjBrcGdMMzBKQ3drQT09
If you do not already contribute to an organization working in Ukraine, below are organizations suggested by a Ukrainian
American Friend (some have recently formed and therefore have no check on efficiency, etc.).
Organizations with multiple projects
https://www.uuarc.org/happening-now/ https://unitedhelpukraine.org/
These are organizations with targeted work: Medical support
RAZOM: Emergency Response – for tactical medical training. Help qualified war medics teach civilians first aid and provide them with medical supplies. Now sourcing funding for a cargo plane shipment of medical aid.
NEW: Help Ukraine Center (Donate, Physical Donations) – Polish-German initiative powered by the Ernst Prost Fundation. Medicines and other essential humanitarian products will be delivered to regions that need it the most, in cooperation with our partners: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, ROZETKA, Fozzy Group, TIS, Dragon Capital, Spunbond fund, Ukrposhta.
NEW: United Ukrainian American Relief Committee (Donate) – provide vital medical supplies to victims, care for the injured and refugees, as well as shelter and food to those affected.
Sunflower of Peace – for medical assistance and other necessities. Each IFAK (medical backpack) can save up to 10 lives.
Lifeline Ukraine – for psychosocial support. Ukraine’s first suicide prevention hotline mobilized in response to alarming rates of veteran suicide.
Veterans and internally displaced persons
NEW: Future Kyiv Charitable Foundation (Donate) – collection of charitable contributions for the purchase of
humanitarian aid to Kyiv residents, organized by the Kyiv Municipal Government.
Revived Soldiers Ukraine – for provision of medical aid and sustainable living standards to wounded soldiers and members of their families.
Ukrainian People With Disabilities in Crisis – helps Ukrainians with disabilities – especially those who want but cannot evacuate – protect themselves in case of emergency.
Caritas Ukraine – provision of humanitarian assistance to various social groups and those impacted by the conflict. More information here.
CrimeaSOS – assistance to internally displaced persons from Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. With the support and partnership of UNHCR, it promotes community initiatives for these groups.
British-Ukraine Aid – assistance to vulnerable individuals who have been physically, mentally or socially disadvantaged, including the injured and wounded, orphaned children, the elderly, internally displaced persons and families who have lost their main earners. More information here.
People in Need: SOS Ukraine – for provision of food and sanitation packages, emergency shelter, psychosocial support, and more in Donetsk and Luhansk, both in territory under the control of the Ukrainian government and in territory not currently under government control.
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UN Crisis Relief: Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund – contributions are collected into a single, unearmarked fund and managed locally under UN leadership. As crises evolve, funds are made directly and immediately available to a wide range of partner organizations at the front lines of response. This way, funding reaches the people most in need when they need it.
Religious and ethnic minority aid
JDC: Emergency in Ukraine – provides a lifeline for an estimated 40,000 Jewish elderly and 2,500 poor Jewish children and their families through its network of care services, Jewish community programs, and Jewish leaders in more than 1,000 locations across Ukraine.
Rabbi Bleich's Help Kyiv – help set up a Refugee Camp for the Kyiv Jewish Community, organized by Ukraine’s Chief Rabbi.
United Jewish Appeal (Donate) – support urgent and mounting humanitarian needs including food, shelter, transport, and emergency medical units.
Roma Women Fund – advocate for Roma women's rights in Ukraine and collaborate with Roma communities on the regional level.
LGBTQIA
NEW: Insight NGO (Donate) – A Ukrainian human rights public organization which brings together lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people.
Ukrainian LGBT Military for Equal Rights Association – support LGBT military in their fight on the frontline and for equality of all citizens at home.
Children
Help Us Help – donations will be used to fund the following: evacuation and relocation of staff and beneficiaries (children, scholars and veteran families), humanitarian aid delivery, and medical assistance for victims.
Save the Children - Ukraine – distribute essential humanitarian aid to children and their families; deliver winter and hygiene kits; provide cash grants to families so they can meet basic needs like food, rent and medicines; provide access to safe, inclusive, quality education; work to help children overcome the mental and psychological impacts of conflict.
Voices of Children – psychological/psychosocial support for children affected by the war.
Saint Javelin – all proceeds of shirt and sticker sales go to a fund for the children of fallen and wounded Ukrainian
soldiers.
Toy Drive for the Children of Fallen Heroes – provides assistance for displaced people, orphans, and families of Ukrainian military who died or were hurt in action. Volunteers in Ukraine learn about needs on the ground and pass information on to us.
Education
Ukrainian Leadership Academy – an educational program that aims to develop a generation of young leaders for Ukraine and the world. Over the course of a gap year, young adults learn to work in a team, set goals, develop projects, take responsibility for their lives and the country's fate, and choose their future profession more consciously.
Ukrainian Catholic University Foundation – invest in the lives of young and talented future leaders of Ukraine and the diaspora.
Veteranius – help teach and employ veterans, volunteers and internally displaced persons in the IT sector and involve them in socially important projects.
Bohdan Radchenko Stipend for Veterans – tuition for a Master’s at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (KMA), Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU).
Quaker’s involvement in the Boarding Schools for Indigenous Children was extensive. Now is the time to look at this history honestly, then decide how we can best make reparations for the negative impact we had. In preparation for consideration of the Minute on these issues, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee will have a film and discussion on May 20th, 2022 at 7 pm. You can familiarize yourself further by reflecting on the following Minute and looking into some of the background resources included with the Minute.
MINUTE
The Baltimore Yearly Meeting wholeheartedly supports the establishment of a national commission to seek truth and a
measure of justice for those still suffering the residual effects of public policies that created and maintained hundreds of
boarding schools for Indigenous children in the United States from 1869 through the 1960s. We support legislation to fund
such a commission. Once established we will hold the people who come before it and the commission members in the Light,
in expectation that airing of harms and traumas will lead to some healing of long-suffered wounds. We want a commission
that yields real results and changes, not a report that gathers dust on a shelf.
We applaud the fact that one intention of the commission is to prevent continued removal of Indigenous (American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian) children from their families, communities, and cultural connections by adoption and foster care agencies.
We urge research by faith groups that ran residential schools, especially the Religious Society of Friends, to provide explicit
data requested by the federal government as part of the commission’s documentation of all boarding schools and students.
We believe accountability requires robust cooperation.
A Celebration of Life for Martha Leland Walker Owings (Lee Owings) will be held at Westminster Canterbury Retirement Community on May 6 at 2 p.m. in the sanctuary. Those wishing to attend should inquire about parking with the guard at the front gate. Lee Owings was raised as a Quaker and attended Richmond Friends Meeting periodically after relocating to the area about twelve years ago. She is survived by her husband, also a resident of Westminster Canterbury, and three daughters.
In December 2021 Business Meeting, we decided to look to the Virginia Department of Health framework when considering our own COVID precautions. In recent weeks, VDH has changed the way they talk about COVID risk and precautions in ways that my allow loosening our own considerations a bit.
As hospitalizations have dropped significantly, VDH has replaced their own “community transmission” reports and considerations with the Centers for Disease Control "risk ranking" model. The CDC model takes into account infection levels, but more heavily weighs the burden on local hospitals.
Under this, Richmond and environs are in the "Low" risk category, which for us suggests that we can:
-- request that friends use their own judgment on whether to mask or not. Some will want to continue masking, particularly those most vulnerable to COVID and anyone who may feel sick and thus want to protect others.
-- continue to attend to ventilation in any indoor space where people gather.
-- consider providing an area in the worship room where people can distance well. Some will want to continue social distancing, particularly those most vulnerable.
-- open the meetinghouse to eating, though still maximizing ventilation and encouraging people to distance, or better yet meet on the patio.
VDH notes that keeping gatherings in “well ventilated” areas is always important. Masking and distancing are still worthwhile precautions. And, as noted while Richmond is currently "Low" risk, we should quickly return to universal masking and consider other precautions if/when we to go to "Medium" risk.
Please contact me or other Working Group members with questions.
Thanks
Dan Shaw, clerk, COVID Working Group